


Fight like an immortal

by jessikast



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: BAMF Immortal Husbands, But she's okay!, Dismemberment, Immortal Husbands, M/M, Nile is hurt, Revenge, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25422046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessikast/pseuds/jessikast
Summary: When Nile is taken down in a fight, Joe and Nicky pull out all the BAMF stops to rescue her and get revenge on the men who have hurt one of their own.It’s not til they’ve got everyone down on the ground in one way or another that they hear a furious, pained scream from the door Nile went through and realise she’s not back with them yet. Joe meets Nicky’s eyes, and they both turn to Andy. “Go,” she says.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 26
Kudos: 582





	Fight like an immortal

**Author's Note:**

> I love all fics that portray that seamless together-forever-and-such-good-BAMFs dynamic between Joe and Nicky, I couldn't resist having a quick go at it myself. I love the image of them turning that in favour of protecting their own.
> 
> Un-beta'd. Possibly slightly more savage violence than canon-typical.

The thing is, Joe thinks, is that Nile is _good_. She’s strong, fast, _fierce_. She has what Andy considers to be the instincts of a warrior, not just a soldier. She doesn’t fight for the sake of it, she fights for a purpose, to _help_ people, with her mind and heart as much as her gut. It’s something she has in common with Andy, Joe and Nicky and – as much as Joe is reluctant to admit it – Booker. You knock her down, she comes back up swinging, already thinking ahead to the next move.

What she doesn’t have yet – and it’s not a reflection on her skills, it’s just that she’s still so _young_ – is the instinctual reaction that the rest of them have in the middle of a fight. She still ducks instead of stepping forward; flinches; stops to urgently press a hand against a wound instead of pushing forward to take advantage of surprise when a possibly-mortal wound doesn’t stop her. She keeps losing momentum in a fight, and there’s not anything they can do about it except to keep throwing her at their opponents, let her learn from experience what wounds are the kind that are worth stopping for, and what are minor inconveniences; how long injuries take to heal while you’re fighting; how far adrenalin can take you; and how to ignore a mortal wound, throw yourself on the enemy who gave it to you, and keep hitting until the end.

You can do a lot of damage in the moments between mortal wound and death, if you’re able to get over the whole “holding in your guts and bewailing your fate” thing.

Anyway, that means that for all that Nile fits into their team amazingly well - not quite taking the space left by Booker (that _fucker_ ) but still stepping up where she’s needed, that sixth sense of handing over a weapon without first looking to see if it’s needed, finishing off the arsehole thrown in front of her – well, she’s not quite _there_ yet. She fights like a mortal. An amazingly skilled mortal, but not yet like an immortal.

The problem is that Nile’s so tough that it’s easy to forget this, to let her eagerness and competence overrule what they remember when they’re training and planning – that she hasn’t quite worked out the balance between the ability to go in fast and hard because she doesn’t need to be so cautious, and yet she has the time (oh, does she ever have the _time_ ) to do it right. They’re in the middle of an ugly brawl against gun runners in a run-down warehouse at the end of a dirty alley when one of the bad guys make a break for the exit. It’s Nile who yells “I’ve got this!” and takes off after him on her own, but Joe doesn’t think it through, just thinks _Good, that’s covered_ the same as he would were it Nicky or Booker or Andy and throws himself onto the back of the man aiming a gun at Andy. (Who _refuses_ to stay out of fights entirely, it’s hideously frustrating.)

It’s not til they’ve got everyone down on the ground in one way or another that they hear a furious, pained scream from the door Nile went through and realise she’s not back with them yet. Joe meets Nicky’s eyes, and they both turn to Andy. “Go,” she says. She picks up a discarded knife, considers the bleeding man at her feet, then kneels to quickly despatch him. “I’ll tidy up here.”

So Nicky and Joe turn, dropping their spent guns but swords in hand (nice thing about a sword: never runs out of bullets, and if you’re motivated you can still use even a blunt sword to cause a _lot_ of damage) and head down the dark hallway. They move quickly but quietly – although Joe wants to run, he knows that there’s value in taking a moment to evaluate the situation before rushing at it.

Nicky is just ahead of Joe and pauses. Eight hundred years ago Joe probably would have run into his back; after this long, he has already parsed Nicky’s slight indrawn breath, the way his weight shifts, and Joe instead stops just behind him, both of them balanced on the balls of their feet, ready to move but perfectly still for a moment, listening. They can hear pained panting and the occasional frustrated grunt – that would be Nile. There are several men’s voices – more than the one Nile dashed off after. The men are relaxed, joking and laughing. Whatever they’ve done to Nile, they’re not worried about her.

This is a mistake.

Joe looks at Nicky, seeing the same grim determination on his face that Joe feels. Joe can’t help quickly gripping the back of Nicky’s neck and pulling him in for a rough kiss, then they’re both adjusting the grip on their swords and walking calmly, implacably through the door.

After all this time they don’t even need to think about strategy. Joe goes low; Nicky goes high. Joe moves quickly toward the back of the room to disarm the men there, who are reacting too slowly to this new threat; Nicky is already pulling his sword from the stomach of the first man nearest the door and using the motion to pull it across the throat of another. There are ten men in the room – not really a challenge but enough to have a jump on Nile by herself. This room holds several open crates, guns, ammunition and packing straw spilling out. _How considerate_ , Joe thinks, not even needing to look up as he throws a handgun to Nicky and taking one for himself. It looks like the men were demonstrating a machine gun – there’s one loaded on a stand, and it looks like this was what took Nile off her feet – literally, with one leg shattered and bleeding across the knee, and the other leg dismembered entirely, the line of bullets having cut through across the thigh.

Joe winces, even while he shoots one of the arms dealers in the chest. Reattaching something small like a finger or an ear is easy enough. Legs, with all the muscles and large bones and major blood vessels? Those are a _bitch_. Joe pauses in the middle of holding a man in a chokehold against his front, exposing the man’s chest for Nicky’s quick sword thrust to try to figure out what happened here.

Nile’s sounds of frustration were, he sees now, because she was trying to actually _reach_ her leg, dragging her way across the blood-slippery floor to get her hands on her limb, which is several meters away with drag-marks in the blood that show where it was moved, kicked away. It looks very like the men here had taunted Nile by making her struggle to get to her own dismembered limb.

He drops the body he’s holding and meets Nicky’s eyes. Nicky nods at him. These men do not deserve quick deaths. Four are already dead, the others injured or scrambling to load weapons. Acting in sync, Nick and Joe sheath their swords. Joe pulls his knife – it’s an oversize dagger, curved on one edge like his sword, meant more for intimidation, but it’s handy to have in close quarters. Nicky pulls a pair of heavy fingerless gloves from his back pocket, chainmail stitched across the knuckles. Fuck yes, Nicky is just going to use his _fists_. Joe watches Nicky smile at a man fumbling and crying with a rifle. It’s not a nice smile. Under the adrenalin of the fight Joe feels his stomach flutter a little, and he hopes that once they’re back in the safehouse they’ll have some time alone. But, first things first.

Joe spins, using his momentum to pin the hand of the man reaching for him to the wall wit his knife, and bends to drop a handgun in Nile’s lap and pull her leg over to her, hauling it roughly into place against what remains of her thigh. She groans under her breath as the flesh starts knitting together – he knows how that feels, that weird tugging hurt when you’re healing and the adrenalin’s fading – and catches her eye. “You okay, kid?”

Nile tries to grin at him, although her mouth is bloody and it’s more of a grimace. Brave girl. “Oh, I’m just peachy. You fuck them up, okay?”

Joe squeezes her shoulder. A bullet pops out. “You got it.”

The man whose hand he impaled has nearly managed to get it free, so Joe decides to help him out by pulling the knife out – with a savage twist which causes the man to scream – and finishes the job with an efficient swipe across the man’s gut. Intestines spill out; Joe moves on.

Nicky is kneeling over one of the arms dealers, shaking out his fist after dealing a final, punishing blow. That man isn’t moving and his face doesn’t look much like a face any more. Joe loves how savage Nicky can be – that _yes_ he is gentle and kind to those who deserve it, but he is also fierce and unyielding, heavier than you’d expect from his build and with the hidden strength that is needed for swinging a sword.

They make their way around the room – two more men each, moving with a fluidity that surprises the men they’re fighting. Joe stabs one in the eye; slices a femoral artery – and some of the anatomy it’s close to. Joe has been shot twice, shoulder and gut – not enough to kill him before they heal, but the pain is enough to fuel the feral rage he’s riding high on.

The last man facing Nicky has wisely decided to skip trying to find ammunition to match the gun he’s found and is trying to wield it as a club. Unluckily for him, it’s now two against one. Joe notices blood on the toes of his once-white sneakers, much in the place it would be if someone where the kind of scum to taunt an apparently-dying girl with her own limbs. “Nicky-“ he says, and his beloved understands, ducking and twisting to come up behind the man to hold his arms behind his back, leaving him vulnerable to Joe’s knife – up under the jaw into the brain, but slowly, so the man understands his impending demise and also that struggling is only going to drive the blade into an artery .

“Okay, that’s enough guys,” he hears Nile behind him, sounding a little shaky. “Thanks, but I’m feeling avenged now.” Joe meets Nicky’s eyes and shrugs. The young are still prone to queasiness, it’s understandable. He shoves the knife up sharply and lets the dead weight between them drop. Nicky leaned forward to rest his forehead against Joe’s for a second. “ _Good fight_ ,” he murmurs in Italian. Joe grins and kisses him – quickly, closed-mouthed, because they both have other men’s blood on their lips. He hears an exasperated “Really? _Really? Now_ is the time?” from Nile, and they part with a quiet huff of laughter.

“I’ll find a splint for her leg, you go find Andy?” Nicky suggests and Joe nods, taking one last look around the room. This is good. These men hurt their Nile. They will not have the opportunity to make that mistake again.


End file.
